Highlights from the Story and Lore Blizzard Livestream

Cinematic Project Director Terran Gregory and Senior Game Designer Steve Danuser will be leading the Story and Lore Blizzard livestream today!\r\r<iframe src="https:\/\/player.twitch.tv\/?autoplay=false&video=v361819740" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="true" scrolling="no" height="378" width="620"><\/iframe><a href="https:\/\/www.twitch.tv\/videos\/361819740?tt_content=text_link&tt_medium=vod_embed" style="padding:2px 0px 4px; display:block; width:345px; font-weight:normal; font-size:10px; text-decoration:underline;">Watch Story and Lore Developer Live Stream from Warcraft on www.twitch.tv<\/a>\r\rSo far in Patch 8.1 we've witnessed the Battle for Darkshore and story of the Night Warrior for the Alliance, as well as the continuation of Saurfang's story for the Horde. In a few weeks, the stakes will rise even higher with the Battle for Dazar'alor, featuring Jaina Proudmoore, King Rastakhan, Bwonsamdi, and High Tinker Mekkatorque.\r\rThis is not a Q&A, but we'll be recapping the highlights of the stream below!\r\rHighlights\r\rThere are multiple different ways to tell stories, once they decide what they want to tell. There are in-game quests but there are also cinematics which can be used in high equity moments.\r\rZandalar and Kul Tiran have been around for a very long time and are rich with lore, so they have Historians who help get all the details.\r\rJaina is one of the original canon characters from Warcraft III and it's been difficult to keep up with her story over so many years. BFA was an opportunity to solidify and re-highlight key aspects of her character through multiple mediums including quests and her Warbringer cinematic.\r\rThe Horde is a different story with Sylvanas, who is a new Warchief and Saurfang who has seen many things, fighting in many wars even before the first war. \r\rZekhan was already planned to be in the cinematic Old Soldier regardless of the community's reaction, but as they saw that the community latched on to Zekhan they were really excited! He represents the youthful element of the Horde.\r\rBwonsamdi had some lines back in 4.1 but they had a relatively clean slate. Bwonsamdi is a trickster -- a rare character archetype in Warcraft. Once the actor really digs in and takes the character, they started iterating Bwonsamdi around him. You should also expect to see more interactions with Talanji and Bwonsamdi in the future.\r\rThey used chapters in Battle for Azeroth which allowed them to focus more on each chapter of the story, compared to dumping it all at once.\r\rLegion was the first expansion end to not have a happy ending compared to previous expansions. It teased the next expansion's crisis.\r\rCataclysm was the first time they experimented with cutscenes. They used new cutscene vehicles to experiment with cutscenes and Uldum may have had too many cutscenes.\r\rThe Terror of Darkshore cinematic was revealed at BlizzCon and this was the first time that they used Malfurion in a cinematic. The goal was to revisit the classic Warcraft III night elves and remind players of their ferocity.\r\rAll the Night Elves have dark eyes when fighting for the Dark Side of Elune because of Tyrande. They also added Golden Eyes to Blood Elves so that players who want to play as a Light-Infused Blood Elf have the option to do so.\r\rPlayer choice: The Horde's story is pretty intense, with different perspectives on what it stands for. In 8.1, they allowed players to look at different perspectives of the Horde and react to it. They thought in this specific moment, it created a big opportunity to allow players who had a clear opinion on whether to support Sylvanas \/ Zekhan&Saurfang. But they also want to make sure that the choice is meaningful; whether she trusts you as a loyal subject or the possibility of her seeing through the ruse of Saurfang punching you in the eye. Player choice will only be used in a very specific scenarios which is makes sense and the choice is meaningful. \r\rTowards the end of the stream, there seemed to be hints of where the story was going in the future. \rTerran Gregory hinted at his shirt, which appears to be the symbol on Mekkatorque's mount\rThe faction battle will culminate in something big.\rTerran hinted at the "Old Cods".\r\rThey ended by talking about how "'when the last torch has been snuffed' and "last funeral pyre is lit," they hope Battle for Azeroth is remembered as a great story. While this could be a figure of speech, the phrases have some foreshadowing--Il'gynoth talks about "Five keys to open our way. Five torches to light our path" and "Old Soldier" opens with memories of Saurfang at his son's funeral pyre. Who do you think the funeral pyre refers to?

Comments

Comment by AzraelUltima

on 2019-01-10T17:21:57-06:00

That hint at the end... clearly 8.3 will be about ancient carmine fish.

Comment by shadowedscholar

on 2019-01-10T17:50:25-06:00

bleh, us who actually care about the direction of the story finally get something and it's this crap lol. Not like i really expected anything good though anyway\r\rWhat were you expecting? Do you not care about the literary and story building devices they utilize, or the way they come up with the ideas they've built upon and brought to the player? I care about the story, and do not believe this is crap. It's quite refreshing to not have the same repetitive questions answered in yet another technical\/class dev stream. \rIt's interesting to hear the developers talk about the way they've created the story and why they've gone in various directions, especially so as someone who enjoys the depth of the story. "Storytelling and Lore"\r\rI do like the behind the scenes stuff, but I too would have liked more story information. They did talk about something I'm a huge fan of, the branching questline for Saurfang and Sylvanas. It'd be interesting if they are watching the completion rates and go forward based on that.

Comment by Castrum

on 2019-01-10T17:54:58-06:00

Lel, the people defending this blazing dumpster fire. If we wanted Behind The Scenes "how to make a cutscene" !@#$, we would watch the videos they make on exactly that topic every single Blizzcon.

Comment by Quadram

on 2019-01-10T21:12:07-06:00

Lets just say this didn't exactly improve the trust that there's a well thought out plan for the story and lore... Just more of what we saw at blizzcon. Paraphrasing:\r\r"We want Saurfang to be sad so we burned down Teldrassil"\r\rI see a lot of Moffat(Doctor Who - great writer, horrible showrunner) in this. They seem to fokus to much on a "cool thing" without really caring how it would affect the world according to established lore. Because of this: the character no longer feel like character with agenda and personal goals, but puppets to the whims of the writers that exist to do whatever the next "cool thing" require them to do. No longer "what will this character do" but rather, "what will the writers have this character do". \r\rMaybe Anduin becomes a Super Saiyan in the 8.2, wouldn't that be cool....

Comment by Cozzene

on 2019-01-11T00:39:09-06:00

I can't even read comments here without running into everyone regurgitating the same "WoW is at its worst!" cries I've seen since at least Cata. Remember when WoD was WoW's death? And here we are. Unless you're saying that every expac has been exponentially worse, in which case, you likely need to find a new game.\r\rOn topic, I wish more actual lore had been discussed, but I wonder how much they can give away before the plot unravels.\r\r(inb4 "durr therz no plot lolz")

Comment by Vetochka

on 2019-01-11T01:32:14-06:00

LOL\rAll they're talking about is the cinematics. Not even the writers care about the story lol\r\rI'm lazy to listen all these. If they talked about cinematics so did they explain why in Sylvanas warbringers cinematic she fights Arthas with other elfs in full open field?.. if lorewise there's literally a BIG ELDER DEEP forest and elfs never fight in open field.

Comment by SgtGrumbles

on 2019-01-11T07:04:45-06:00

Even the Haters that want Sylvanas dead, i am sure that noone wants a SoO v.2\r\rSoO 2.0 is much better than Kerrigan 2.0.\r\rAgreed, I'd take SoO again over that mess any day of the week. I loved that raid (even for the near year we had it) and still do.

Comment by Sebrani

on 2019-01-11T08:02:25-06:00

False advertizing\/clickbait. Im not one to complain about the game but i was really excited for this, and seeing blizz baiting players like this is dissapointing - not surprised though... Im beginning to believe they are desperate, which sucks.

Comment by voidox

on 2019-01-11T09:10:05-06:00

they hope Battle for Azeroth is remembered as a great story

BAHAHAHAHAAHA, nice one~

The goal was to revisit the classic Warcraft III night elves and remind players of their ferocity

no, us players have never forgotten the WC3 night elves blizzard, it's YOU who forgot and ruined the night elves, turning them into what they are today... ruining Tyrande (ugh her voice actress btw, what happened) and Malf and just so much more. I guess the cinematic was to remind themselves of what the night elves once were.

Player choice will only be used in a very specific scenarios which is makes sense and the choice is meaningful

you mean, the illusion of choice. There is no choice, the story has been written and done and writers have moved on to the next xpac, we know this from how things work with other expansions. Having bit of text that differs for the "choice" you make is w.e, doesn't mean anything.

SoO 2.0 is much better than Kerrigan 2.0.

agreed, don't see how anyone thinks Sylvanas can be redeemed unless its an asspull of a story like kerrigan was.

hell, i still don't understand how Blizzard continue to act like Sylvanas is in any way "the horde" that anyone cept for people who want to RP as Forsaken (i.e. wanna play the bad guys, which is fine if they want to) or she's the undead waifu ppl want (i.e. the writing team).

From being cool with abandoning the dying planet to start another world war to her genocide to her killing\/raising her own troops to her killing her own people to keep them enslaved to her will to her plans to genocide humans in Stormwind to her constant talks of how she only sees the horde as "quivers in her bow" to her disregard\/hated of horde races to allying with Aashvane to using Azerite first annnnnd on and on and on.

If she was not undead waifu, she's be the next raid boss in a heartbeat after all the stuff she's done... but nah, blizzard keep acting like "its a choice" for which horde you want -_-______________________________________________

and ya, overall nice bait of a stream Blizzard... maybe try not lying for once and just outright say this was a cinematic dev livestream and no one would have been angry, hell, more people would have watched for what the stream was... though it was just them patting themselves on the back so meh.

EDIT -

"Talanji is an example of freshly introduced character that turned out well"

BAHAHAHAAHAHAHAH

Comment by kpreag

on 2019-01-11T13:25:34-06:00

Funeral pyre may refer to Voljin...

Comment by waverve

on 2019-01-12T16:15:02-06:00

They absolutely asked for players to leave feedback and comments for discussion. It was absolutely reasonable to assume that some questions were going to get addressed. If there weren't going to be any, they should have stated as much in a way that wasn't ambiguous.

Where did they do that? I saw an announcement about the livestream being complained about on the forum because there was no questions thread and then a blue replied that it was not a Q&A but if anyone had questions they were free to ask them.

Comment by Aniul

on 2019-01-12T16:38:12-06:00

Bye, Saurfang <3

Comment by Neruk

on 2019-01-13T18:20:24-06:00

Little disappointing with this one. Gave us a lot of nothing. Mostly things we already knew. : \/

Comment by mybelovedchaos

on 2019-01-15T11:41:08-06:00

Lots of talk of funerals \u2026 I don't know if I should be nervous or excited... I think I'm excited!